Charlotte and Fi's secret blog

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Here is the finished blanket all wrapped up and ready to go, that border was more than 500 stitches! Tedious.

And above is the winter vest I am making for Molly. I have worked and ripped back the last 2 rows five times, dropped 4 stitches which were a complete pain to pick up again and now I'm finally back on track. All I had to do was remember to do a purl stitch after the armhole stitches rather than a knit stitch. Honestly! Where is my brain?

And for something (at last) that is non-baby knitting I thought I might give this a go...

Monday, May 2, 2011

I have been a charitable and virtuous person and made something for a lady in Christchurch (title...see what I did there? Yup.) I thought you might like to see the process. So,

I had some knitting arrive in the post which was very exciting! Like a craft-themed Christmas. And the fact that these internet strangers had put such a lot of effort into their squares made me whip up another one. Learned a new stitch too, Andalusian stitch. Pretty (it's the white square in the last photo).

Then I blocked all the kindly sent squares and got ready for a marathon session of seaming. This was unexpectedly difficult because some of the squares didn't have any tails of wool so I had to match with ends from my stash or carefully position them to take advantage of the ones that did have tails.

Then there was the weird accident with the domed-glass paper weights and sunshine. Glad I was home. I doubt insurance would have believed the story if our house had burnt down because of knitting and laser-beams. It would have wrecked an overseas square too rather than one of mine which I could easily patch. Proof...

Sunday, March 20, 2011

-Eating well when you only have one hand free and there are delicious vanilla and poppyseed cupcakes sitting temptingly on the bench at 8am

-Finishing my knitting once I am bored with it! It takes me almost as long to seam and sew on buttons as it does to actually knit the pieces.

-Sewing with wool that breaks at annoyingly impractical points in your seams. Although, this tweed does come together really nicely, leaving almost invisible joins and making me feel accomplished.

Things that are easy:

-Staying in your dressing gown until well past midday

-Wasting time in a ravelry-gmail-facebook loop

-Linen stitch! I am making a cowl (ostensibly for Bojana, but it's looking very small. If it blocks ok I'll drag it over my own head and keep it. If it doesn't then Molly can have it next winter and I'll make Bojana a decent sized one).

This is one of those projects that is clearly not working as it should (size-wise) but is addictive and complicated enough that it would almost be more annoying to rip it all back and start again than it would be to finish and not be able to wear it. I'm not sure it will even fit around my neck, let alone pull over my head but I am happy going round-and-round and admiring my handiwork. Simple things...

Thursday, March 10, 2011

I could be described as a domestic goddess you know. I am nearly always confined to the house for a good part of the day now so to fill the endless hours (when I am not feeding Molly or feeding Molly or feeding Molly) I have channelled my inner 1950s housewife.

There is knitting. This is my first properly seamed garment to date. It's a blue tweed jacket for Molly. The wool looks nice but is a pain the a$$ to seam with! It's very splitty and likes to un-ply itself. So there has been a lot of swearing and tantruming over finishing this. It got worse when I discovered that something was very wrong with my gauge resulting in sleeves that were wildly disproportionate to the body. I took a deep breath and CHOPPED them short rather than re-knit them. Taking scissors to your knitting is stressful and counter-intuitive. However, it's looking like it may have worked. Pictures will follow next time (if I can work out the collar).

There has been baking. This was the cake I made for Cameron's birthday. It was a rosemary cake and smelled awesome. But I had to store it in a container that had housed parmesan cheese which ruined the effect somewhat.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Did the cat drop a flailing, screeching wax-eye onto it just as I was finishing? Yes (but it's ok, I saved it).

BUT...I am almost done! I don't care about the many imperfections. I am going to finish it and give it to our little girl as a birthday present one year. And because it isn't perfect she can mangle it and drag it about and I won't mind. I am just thrilled to bits that I will have actually finished it and it won't sit in pieces under our bed forever mocking me. Note that the messy and uneven edges will be snipped to a nice tidy line. Straight sewing evaded me.

So today I went to the little quilting shop in Onehunga and the lovely ladies helped me buy the things I need to finish it without smirking or laughing at all, and I am even in time to join in with one of their classes for a couple of evenings so they can help me finish the backing, actual quilting, and binding. I am not-so-secretly proud of myself over the fact that I am nearly done with this!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

I have finally got back into my knitting. I'm sure that while you're off galloping around Europe this is the last thing you will be interested in, but oh well! Here are the latest little knits...

The bonnet is lovely and soft to touch. It's made of bamboo fibre which I hadn't used before, but will definitely buy again. I am making a dent in my stash at the moment though rather than buying new wool, so that's satisfying!

I have also become motivated to finish knitting the socks I started (and promptly lost interest in) at the beginning of the year. I am now powering towards the toe of the first sock! Which means I turned a heel successfully. Excellent. I am enjoying knitting something different, but the annoying thing is that I have a whole second sock to knit if I want to be able to wear them! Damn pairs. Whether or not the first one fits will determine the fate of the second sock.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

I took part in another knitting swap this month and just got my parcel a couple of days ago...wool! Yay! Plus chocolate and tea and some really pretty stitch markers. Just wanted to show you (gloat?). I like these swaps. It means I get new wool without guilt and often it's stuff I haven't seen for sale here.